How the women in our lives can teach us more about ourselves than our romantic relationships.

Have you ever seen those Russian nesting dolls?

The ones that are hidden inside the other, where you open one to find a smaller one and so on and so on? 

I did a little research, and they are called Matryoshka dolls. “Mater” means mother in Latin.

These dolls are meant to represent a mother carrying a child within her. And how women then give life to the next by way of their wombs, woman after woman, carrying on their family legacy.

“The dolls are used to illustrate the unity of body, soul, mind, heart and spirit.”

It got me thinking about women.

About how important of a role we play in our own lives and in the lives of the women around us.

But for me, it isn’t just about the moms of the world. I like to think of these dolls as women in general and how each women shapes us in some way.

From the women we knew in junior high school, to the women that have betrayed us, to our daughters, sisters, mothers, best friends, and all the ones in between.

All of them matter and all of them teach us something about ourselves. And yes, even the ones that sting. (Because being betrayed by another woman hurts WAY more than being betrayed by a man. Right?! Segway…)

Ok, so let’s look at this.

When I look back on all the women in my life, both past and present, I can see why I needed each of them. How I was playing out something that I needed to learn by means of choosing one girlfriend over another. And that they were subconsciously doing the same, by choosing me.

The interesting part is, it’s easier for me to look at my girlfriends and what my role was with them, then it is any male relationship I’ve been in. It’s like the wall can come down, it softens, and I can see. I think it’s because we are the same. There’s a kindred bond there that is unspoken and strong. With men, it just isn’t there, simply because they are the opposite sex.

So let me tell a story…about all the women in my life. 

Like a Russian nesting doll, each woman plays a part, has a character, and has made me into who I am today:

The Mentor

I grew up with two older brothers, and so naturally, I always wanted a sister. Enter my brother’s girlfriend from university. 

I looked up to you from the very beginning. You taught me from a place of kindness and grace. You were my big sister. The one that showed me how to put an outfit together, the ins and outs of dating boys, and all my burning too-scared-to-ask-anyone-else questions about sex. (This terrified, naive and uber curious teenage girl is very thankful for all your lessons.)

You were patient, kind, and wise. Somehow, over the years, you seem to pop back into my life to show me something or to bring me some peace. It always happens when I am struggling and when I need you the most.

Much like a real life fairy God Mother, my fairy God Mother.

You always encouraged me to be honest, to journal and write, and to be true to myself. 

And then as if you magically waved your wand, you were gone again, but yet, I knew you were (and are) always there. 

My guide, teacher, fashionista and sextherapist when I was young. 

My mentor, friend, confidant and equal today.

The Addict

My larger than life, kind, and incredible friend. A woman that has been through so much trauma, that she can’t be with the shame of it all.

You touch people in ways that I’ve only seen done by you. You are a master at healing, laughing, and creating. You can relate to all those around you and everyone wants you around. Not only because of your gorgeous face, and cute bum, but because of the light you emit every day. You invite people in.

But your addiction has taken you away from me.

It’s taken you away from everyone else too.

It’s even taken you away from you.

I miss you. 

Friends since junior high, we would finish each other’s sentences. We would joke about you having the devil’s tail and me wearing the angel’s wings. A deep knowing and understanding about each other, without any words being spoken.

You were and still are my very favourite human.

You have taught me how hard life can be and how some people simply can’t be with their trauma and with their shame.

I wish I could save you. I wish I could swoop in and rescue you from the need to constantly numb. 

To remind you of your incredible beauty.

You have taught me that even the most intelligent and beautiful people can be affected by addiction…no matter how much love and help is thrown their way.

That it’s not my job to save you.

Only you can do that.

That really each of us are on our own. No one is coming to rescue us, even if we want them to and even if they so desperately want to as well. 

It is ultimately up to us to live out our own dreams and to “save” ourselves.

And so, I will continue to hold you in my heart while keeping a strong loving wall around me.

The Opponent

When I met you, I instantly wanted you to pick me. Like the little girl at the back of the class desperately waving her hand in the air saying, pick me, pick me, pick me!!!!!

You were so cool. The woman with an edge that everyone wanted approval from. They all wanted to be picked too. 

The Ying and the Yang, the blonde and the brunette, the feisty one and the sweet one. The uptime of opposites attracting.

What I couldn’t see is that underneath our bravados, you didn’t feel strong, and neither did I. And so, once we became friends, there was always an underlining competition between the two of us. 

Who could do something better? Who would do the thing first? Who got the boy? Who did the boy like more? Who was prettier? Who was busier? Who was more successful?

But then, there was a shift, one where we could see each other’s hearts and that drive to compete lessened. But it was always a little bit there. In the background, like a low thrum.

You were my rock. My constant strong that would always tell it to me straight. And you were fiercely loyal. My Sassy to your Stinky (aka Rebecca- thank you Ted Lasso).

And then I needed to take a break…our way of being went from feeling full to feeling constricting to me. I recognized that I couldn’t play big with you, be totally honest with you or be completely myself with you.

I needed to learn who I was, what boundaries were and how to trust myself over others. To trust myself, over you.

After 20 years of friendship, our break up was hard. But I couldn’t ignore my body, what it was feeling and what it was inevitably telling me.

So I let you go with only love for you in my heart.

Our story doesn’t end there.

With time, healing and work, the Universe has brought us back together.

In moments where we were both struck, like a magical bolt of lightning coming out of nowhere, we would randomly run into one another.

Serendipitous moments where there was only love, big tears, and emotional hugs.  

I don’t know where we will go from here, but for now, I am grateful for these special moments and the foundation of love that hasn’t changed. And for your forgiveness.

I’ve learned from the opponents in my life that I too was being an opponent. That I needed time to figure out who I was to stay in my truth and to not play small for anyone. That that was completely on me. 

That without the opponents, I wouldn’t know what that dance felt like and how it can go from seemingly fulfilling to constricting and tight. 

That I needed to choose me and not always want to be chosen first. 

That little girl at the back of the room, needed to put her hand down.

The Temptress

I met you when my marriage was really struggling. When I was lonelier in my marriage than I was alone. You swept in, as if on a white horse, with your wide smile and charming wit, and you scooped me off my feet.

Hours of gossiping, eating at the same restaurant once a week, trips to the mountains, dates to the theatre, swapping clothes and calling each other sister within a month. You were my metaphorical affair.

My escape. 

And then, you left as quickly and dramatically as you had come. One day, by means of a curt text, I was blocked and out of your life. My heart was broken. I was ghosted and I felt like a hole was permanently placed inside my chest. 

I couldn’t understand why you left me and had no way of finding out.
I was left to ruminate and cry without any answers.
I felt abandoned.

You were abandoned too. I remember you told me the stories, standing on the driveway watching your mom pull away to never return.

And then, my heart softened.

I can now understand why you left me, and I can see how I too was unhealthy. I needed someone to cling to. To escape with. I was desperate. And so, we were the perfect fit.

Today, I can look back and offer gratitude to my Temptress. She saved me in a lot of ways and also showed me how lonely I was. At the time, I blamed her and simply felt angry and heartbroken. But I can see now that she provided me with a small catapult into a new direction of my life. 

My Temptress swept in and then swept out, just as she needed to for me.

The Damsel in Distress

Our kids were in the same activities together. Again, I wanted to be chosen by you. I’d see you out and I’d quietly sit and admire your beauty from afar. How your scarf matched your boots perfectly. How your kids looked all put together and were always smiling. 

Our kids became fast friends. 

We were together all the time, thanks to them. We raised our youngest sons together. 

I told you everything. The quiet secrets that no one else knew. The hard of being a mom. The hard of being a wife. The hurt of abuse. You shared all your secrets with me too. 

You were my call when I was crying on the floor, my go to when life seemed to keep pushing me down. 

Family vacations together. Shared Christmases. 

We thought we were gonna be friends for life.

And then I noticed something. Like watching a character change roles in a play. 

You became the Damsel in Distress.

Shy, unassuming, using your beauty to your advantage as you’d subtly dip your chin towards your shoulder and giggle. You’d laugh a little louder, reach out and touch a little more often, every time he was around.

He would change too. His character was the Rescuer. Also played out almost to perfection.

I was confused. I could see something, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.

And then one day, when I told you how I felt and it was just the two of us, you looked up at me and innocently said, “I could see how that would be hard and confusing for you Chantelle, but I’m still so disappointed that he didn’t call me today” and right then I watched you morph into your perfectly poised Distressed Damsel.

My heart sank into my belly, and I knew. I knew in that moment that I couldn’t trust you. That you could no longer be my person. 

You two continued to play your roles into an eventual relationship. I didn’t want to believe it until I was forced to. And once I did, I cried like I’ve never cried before. 

From him, ok. But from you? No. That couldn’t be possible. And yet it was.

What I learnt from you is that my instinct is strong. That, as soon as I saw the play and the characters emerge, I knew and I shifted.

I learned that some of us are only capable of loving another on the surface. That some of us need the roles and the drama to feel chosen and to feel belonging. That I too was once that person.

I learned that I needed more and that you two made sense because neither of you could go further with me. That you needed to stay where you were, and I needed to grow. That it was too hard for either of you to move away from it, so you naturally found a soft landing in each other. 

I have healed from the sting of your betrayal. I have reached a place where I can forgive you because I can see how sad you were and that you just couldn’t move. 

And I am proud of myself for moving.

I am stronger today as I no longer put people up on pedestals. I trust myself and know my instincts are on point and without you, I wouldn’t have learned such an important lesson.

By seeing and admitting that I too liked to be rescued, I could find room to understand you and your why. And I found compassion.

I learned to stop calling you my friend, to not allow you access to my heart, and to also stop harbouring that bitter anger that was burning a hole in my belly.

That anger was only ever hurting me.

And so, you taught me forgiveness.

Thank you.

The Curious One

At first, I didn’t believe what I was seeing. How could someone love their kid like that? How could someone be so humble, vulnerable, kind and yet real and intelligent at the same time?

I felt zero competition from you. It was weird for me. I always felt a little bit of competition from women. We were always sizing each other up. Always.

But not you.

You were curious. You were innocent yet wise. Your heart was huge and real. You gave me safety. Not in the sense that everyone thinks of, but in the emotional way. I felt seen, heard, and validated by you. 

I watched you with your daughter and I was in awe. 

You let her feel her feelings. Even the hard ones, especially the hard ones. You helped her explore them and I watched what it was like to be raised by a mother that was emotionally mature. An ability to hold the hard without numbing or pushing it away. 

I knew in that moment, that I wanted to be a mom just like you. That you were the role model of what I was craving and where I wanted to learn and grow into.

You have become my soul sister. My constant, unconditional friend that always pushes me to play big and celebrates me at every corner.

You’ve taught me how to become that myself. How to invite other women in, to encourage other women, to show compassion and to find forgiveness.

How we can all be under the same limelight, and that there’s loads of room for each of us to shine bright!

Thank you for showing me what real curiosity and love look and feel like.

You helped me grow into the woman that I already was.

The Constant

You have always been there. Easy. We can relate to one another without any effort at all. We can talk for hours, and we understand each other’s way of relating. You hold space for me. We laugh and laugh.

You were my beacon when it came to raising beautiful, strong men and what it looked like for a woman to gracefully and respectfully manage her divorce. Ten years my senior, I always looked up to you.

From watching your youngest giggle uncontrollably on your lap, to holding each other accountable in our growth, to celebrating big life events and new relationships. The similarities between us and the ability to communicate honestly, have always been there.

Navigating life together as we work side by side in the ICU.

You have been my constant companion. There, no matter what. 

You’ve taught me the beauty of conversation, relating, music, dance, and most of all, laughter. 

How simplicity, rest and laughing uncontrollably are things one should never live without.

The Explorer

The ability to change her stars and the courage to become whatever she wants to be.

Your grounded energy is magnetic. I watch as my dog follows you around and my children are instinctively drawn to your calmness. You have a way of making all those around you feel centred.

You have the intellectual capacity of a lawyer/inventor/physicist. The woman that can literally do anything that she puts her mind and effort towards. Give her the right books, people to talk to, and hands on experience and she can take anything on.

Mastering each hat that she has tried on and fearlessly diving right in.

You’ve taught me the beauty of slowing down.

How meditation and rest are both things that this busy doer was lacking in her life and how there really is such a thing as soul food.

That no matter how many hats we try on, staying true to oneself, underneath the hats, is the most important thing to always remember.

How walking in nature can literally soothe your soul and how drinking hot water can be surprisingly enjoyable. 

That if you put your mind to something, it is possible. And that real freedom can exist when one realizes that we are not our thoughts.

The Neurodivergent

You are perpetually mis-understood. Always black and white, never grey. Always literal in your way of relating and speaking to others. You seem to not care. You even have a wicked RBF (resting b*ch face). You are often judged prematurely, and people can feel threatened by you. 

What they don’t know is that you notice things that everyone else misses. That your beautiful unique brain is capable of attuning to a whole other layer. One that us “normal” folk, can’t even see.

You’ve taught me not to take things personally. That if I do, we only fight, and we will never connect.

But I had to grow up first.

I had to become enough of a person to myself before I could hold space for your literal ways and to NOT take them personally. 

Before that, I was always reacting and defending. Rinse and repeat. 

Since growing up emotionally, I can now listen for the nuances of what you are trying to say.

I can share with you how something you said landed for me instead of always defaulting to defending myself.

You could never hear me when I was defending. Like I was talking to a wall.

Now I can get through. I’ve softened because I am whole. And now, instead of fighting our differences I’m learning more about you and you are learning about me. 

We are relating on a different level. 

You have taught me how to love myself enough not to always feel the need to defend.

That two very different brains can connect on a deep level, when I thought it wasn’t even possible.

That this can then translate into my romantic relationships, how to not personalize something my partner says and to just listen to him as well.

The Earth-Witch

My kind and generous Latina sister-in-law. The one that somehow has always known. When we asked you over and over again if you were going to have more babies, you calmly responded,

“No I don’t want more children. I want to be able to have time for each of them. If I have more, then they won’t get the time from me that they deserve. They owe me nothing, I owe them everything.”

She was a teacher and saw something that I naively couldn’t see. I just wanted more babies, I couldn’t extrapolate what having more meant down the road. Into their adolescence, teens and adulthood. But she could.

The one that has always gone against the grain. No matter how hard the push from society was. Home-schooling her children right through to high school, she and my brother have raised two incredible independent human beings. Children that know who they are and aren’t afraid to express themselves or to ask for help when they need it.

The organic, natural one. At a time when I was all about medicating myself and enjoying a daily glass of wine, the Earth Witch would never judge and always be happy while continuously choosing to drink water. She would always look for the root cause of a problem, instead of jumping to treat the symptoms.

Exploring how the mind, body and spirit are all connected.

A woman ahead of her time. She has taught me what it feels like to be aligned and to choose my wellness over my illness. To treat the human and not the disease. She has embodied and helped me understand and live into what it means to feel healthy in my own body. To not constantly chase the “ideal look” and to not give into the demand of society.

To be truly happy in our own skin. No makeup. No botox. Just you. And (although I’m still working on the botox bit), I’ve come a long way with regards to my need to always look perfect.

I thank you for always modelling what it’s like to be ok with just being you.

The Care-Taker

My old self.

(Ok, let’s be honest, maybe not so old at all, and instead a daily choice to be with, love and chose differently.)

A people pleaser, she always said yes even though she meant no. If someone was hurt, needed her, was disappointed, confused or in her view “needed fixing”, she was there in a flash.

Her value lied in caring for others over herself. To the point that she couldn’t even hear herself. She only heard the needs of others and thought they were her own.

Her lack of boundaries allowed for her to enable all sorts of behaviour, that one would not tolerate otherwise. It also allowed for her to build a boat load of resentment, to not know her needs (let alone communicate them) and for her to be taken for granted over and over.

This is where her mom and her grandmother and all the women that came before them in her family live too. By ways of modelling, we pass these traits on unconsciously to the women we love the most.

My mom. My grandmother.

Hence the Russian doll legacy reference, by the way of the womb…

I’ve learned from her, that she was exhausted and didn’t know it. That she thought always being “ready” was normal and that all the nervous system responses that she was having, was normal as well.

Feeling guilty, needing to always do, looking all put together and always being available. That not speaking her truth, saying yes and abandoning herself, eventually made her sick.

That she needed to show herself, including (and especially) the parts that kicked up shame, love and acceptance. To allow it all to be exactly as it was.

So she paid attention, and learned who she really was.

She surrounded herself with people and places that allowed her to play big, and that felt safe.

She taught me how to be an empath. How to attune myself to the body language and nuances of others. No one can read a room (or lips) like me!

She taught me how to be an incredible mom, wife, nurse, cook and house-keeper.

She also taught me what it felt like not to listen to my body, to abandon myself and to harbour resentment.
And why I can never go back.

She taught me that the most important person, is me.

And that teaching that to my daughter should be my number one focus, because she’s the next doll in my nest.

And that folks, is my Russian nesting doll, humph.

As I reflect on each of these women and relationships, I am left with a deep sense of gratitude. I can see that I too became each of these women in some capacity at different points in my life.

From the Damsel to the Temptress to the Opponent. I have embodied them all. 

Like the nesting dolls, each friendship has formed me, led me to the next step or carried me through each phase.

Each woman is a part of the woman I am today.

Where I once would wish for something different, I can now see that even the most hurtful experiences have carried a beautiful lesson with them. 

That each doll has a purpose. Even (and especially), my caretaker.

Can you see the women in your life? From the ones that have betrayed you, to the ones that you were in competition with or the ones that swept you off your feet at that perfect moment? Past and present.

How you showed up, why and who you chose? Each one forming us. Each one, us taking on.

Can we invite other women in, instead of seeing them as a threat?

Choosing us before anyone else.

How like the Russian nesting dolls, each women illustrates the unity of our body, soul, mind, heart and spirit.

Each women carries with her a knowledge that we can use to learn and grow from for ourselves.

Look and see.

It can give you some incredible insight into who you are. 

One doll at a time.

xo